Dabblings of the Heart
by Mr. Fishy
Summary: The relationship between Alex and Harper
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Can't say that I own this television series so please don't sue me, honestly, I'm kind of broke

**DISCLAIMER: **Can't say that I own this television series so please don't sue me, honestly, I'm kind of broke.

**Author's Note: **Collection of dabbles between Harper and Alex arranged in no specific order and written in different perspectives.

_**Gray**_

I can't say, really, where the lines are crossed. What constitutes right from wrong (black and white.) I think the world, time and space, it's all one huge line to cross, one big gap to fill- how? No one really knows until their time is called. But how do you know? How does one desirer the eternal question of _when_. When do I break out and become my own person? When do I find my place? And lastly, when do I find my someone?

I think I crossed the line that day in the sandwich shop when I watched her walk down the staircase. I watched differently then I had before, it was so subtle and unimportant and that's precisely what terrified me the most- it seemed _normal_. It was more of an observation really; I watched with a smile, I watched with a keen eye.

Everything that should bounce did as she made her way to me. Her lips curved up in their usual sly pose and her eyes lit afire with a wild spark of mischief. She walked to me, made some comment about her brothers and morning and off we went. I followed, because she is the ever leader and I do not mind, I rather like it. We walked to school, side by side then, she gabbed away about her up coming math test and I listened.

I'm good at listening, she tells me, I'm good at being there, she always informs me, I'm her best friend, she like to whisper to me- it gives me shivers in the most unexpected places. The tingles ride up my back shaking me then into my chest, warming other contents of my body.

She's so very pretty and I think she knows it. I know that she realizes it because she likes to flaunt it, occasionally. She'll swing her hips looser, sexier, sometimes. She'll wear darker make-up ("It makes me feel empowered, Harper!") She flashes certain smiles to certain people, I included, but the smile she gives to me is different because we know each other.

I've seen her down; I've seen her at her best. I know every little detail and yet, I know nothing at all. I know she keeps things from me. I pretend not to mind when she rushes off randomly and then returns with some lame excuses the next day. Everyone is entitled to their own secrets. Everyone needs something for themselves, something to keep inside to hold and have.

I have secrets. I keep my secrets from her just like she does to me… sometimes I wonder if her secret is just as bad as mine. But then, is it bad? There it is again, a line, I'm standing at the edge of something. I've arrived to my ground breaking life changing _when_ moment… and I'm terrified.

I like Alex.

**XxXxXxX**

**Author's Note: **Hopefully it wasn't all too painful to read. I like Harper but mostly because her name reminds me of _To Kill a Mockingbird_. Leave your thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

Flash

_**Flash! Cards.**_

I have so many things I need to be doing right now. My AP History test is coming up; I need to make flashcards to study. I must pick up a copy of _Death in the Afternoon_ by Ernest Hemmingway for AP English and have it read by Monday. Oh, and Miranda's birthday is coming up… I have no idea what to do for that; maybe I'll ask Alex later about it…Let's see, what else, I flip another page of my daily planner and jot a few more notes down. Calculus and Physics… oh, yeah finished last night before dinner, score! I quickly grab my red pen and mark the two homework assignments off my list.

Chewing on the end of the pen I try to remember anything else I might have forgotten. Drawing a blank I shrug and pull out my history book from my bag- oh crap, where are my flashcards?

Frowning, I stand up and begin walking to her room. Alex was the last one with them, I remember she said her and Harper were working on a science project or something and needed them to plan their presentation. It makes so angry when she doesn't put them back in their established place. I keep my flashcards right inside my desk drawer right next to my calculator.

"Alex!" I knock on the door, "Alex, I'm coming in." I turn the knob, ready with my peeved face and crinkled brow, so now hopefully Alex will get the message and won't trick me into paying her ten dollars again, or something worse.

"Alex, where are my-"

I freeze, heart hammering in my chest.

Alex is on the bed, ohmygod, Harper is laying on top of her and they are-

"Justin, get out!"

"I'm sorry- I- oh- flashcards! Oh!" I quickly turn around and slam the bedroom door behind me. My mouth is dry and my cheeks are hot red with embarrassment. Alex and… Alex and… I thought Harper had a crush on me?


	3. Chapter 3

Cleaning

_**Cleaning**_

It has been one week since she's told me, one whole week should be time enough to process everything, but it isn't. I still find myself lapsing back into that state of worry, a worry that will never leave me now.

We were washing dishes that night because the dishwasher was broken and the repairmen couldn't get to us till Monday. It was Saturday, girl's night because Jerry took the boys to a baseball game downtown. I was excited; I had the whole evening planned to fit Alex's taste, because being the mother I' am I could tell something was up with her.

We ate Chinese food on the rug in the living room and listened to my mother's old salsa records. Alex loves our mother daughter Saturday nights, we used to have so much fun, chatting, gossiping. She would reflect on her crush of the week and her classes and her life.

Alex would open up to me, telling me about her plans to travel and to become a free-lance photographer. And I would tell her about my adventuresome youth, back packing around Europe with my friends, and getting food poisoning while staying in Jamaica with Jerry.

But that night one week ago, Alex was silent. She pushed her fried rice around and around her plate and fumbled with her fortune cookie wrappers. I tried to bring up good conversational topics, boys, school, Harper and she cringed at every one of them, especially the one about boys.

I couldn't understand why my little girl was acting that way. Alex has never been one to keep quiet. I love my vibrate, active, goofy daughter, but on that night I couldn't find her anywhere. I gave up half way through the evening. I didn't bother asking her about going to see a movie; instead we gathered our plates and glasses and walked into the kitchen to clean them.

Alex was on washing duty while I grabbed a dishrag and dried off the dishes. Alex was washing the last plate when she started to cry. I didn't even realize it at first; I was drying off a glass when out of the corner of my eye I saw her shoulders shaking.

It was terrifying. Alex hadn't cried since the third grade when Danny Franco tripped her outside the apartment complex causing her to scrap up both her knees. But yet, there she was at sixteen, _crying_, my baby, my little girl whom I still see at five-years old swinging her hips in the dress with strawberry designs on it that my mother made for her at my father's birthday party.

She turned to me that night, her eyes red and blotchy and her bottom lip trembling. She kept shaking her head at me and repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" over and over again. I took her soapy hands in mine and pulled her close to my face and I asked her what was wrong, at that point I was beginning to tear up, setting myself up for the worst. I prepared mentally for anything, but what she told me.

"Mommy," She said to me, "Mommy, I'm so sorry…." She bent her head and hiccupped over her tears.

"What, Alex, tell me," I remember so vividly, she met my eyes and with a shaky in take of breath she said…

"I'm gay."

I've always considered myself a liberal; I like to consider myself someone who strives for equality in any context. People are people- no matter the skin color, the size, or sexual orientation, but I never wanted that life for my Alex. I remember the tragic Matthew Shepard story, I know of all the hate crimes and it disgusts me- I would never ever wish something like that on another person. And now Alex will be thrown into that world, into that life where strangers will hate her, for no logical reason at all.

I don't want that, I never wanted that.

I cried, after she told me, we cried together. I took her into my arms and cradled her. "Don't you _ever _be sorry," I whispered into her hair, "Do you understand, Alex? Don't you _ever_ be sorry for who you are." She nodded into my neck, her tears soaking my skin. We cried together, my heart breaking into small pieces one at a time.

Now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table biting my nails. The boys don't know anything and neither does Jerry, I've wanted to tell him, but Alex isn't ready, till now.

"Alex said we needed to have a family sit down?" Jerry asks from the doorway, eyebrows arched up in confusion.

"Yes, dad," Alex's voice sounds from the hallway, "We need to talk."


	4. Chapter 4

We are kissing

_**Water - melon**_

We are kissing. It is a slow massage of lips and tongues. I like the way her hands are, nestled in my honey brown locks- clutching tightly as I now bestow butterfly kisses on her cheeks. Kissing her now reminds me vaguely of eating watermelons in the heat of summer. I picture myself leaning against my deck railing sinking my teeth into a nice succulent watermelon- the juices running down and between each of my fingers, the inner satisfaction of wondrous taste buds spinning out of control- yes, kissing her is like eating a watermelon- but much more juicy.

She moans in my open mouth and my knees begin to shake, violently. My upper thighs quiver uncontrollably. I want to cry out in pleasure but I just keep pressing my tongue in, running it across her teeth, and over the roof of her mouth. She pulls away, slowly, mumbling something, breathing the words over my neck just before she attacks that uncharted skin.

The second her teeth come in contact with my neck, I can't take it, I fall back but gently. I navigate myself and her clumsily to a sitting position… or rather, I'm resting in one of my mother's wing backed chairs and she is perched in my lap sucking on my collar bone. For the very first time in my life I want to swear. I want to swear and let her know just how far she is pushing me this time.

Alex has always been one to cross boundaries.

I let my hands wander up the back of her shirt; I drag my nails down and then up her spin- letting the goosebumps erect all over her. She is shaking in my arms. I want this time to last, not like before, I don't want to stop just because a back door opens, or the phone rings, no, I want to stay like this until I' am finished, satisfied like the watermelon

"Harper…" She says huskily into my shoulder.

I don't answer, I just keep feeling her, she is so soft- like fresh laundry and the urge to rub my cheeks against her surges through me.

"Harper…" She whimpers breathlessly.

We meet in a suddenly stare. My arms are wrapped around her holding her to me so she will not fall. She begins to unbutton my blouse with awkward, unsure hands. Her eyes are fierce and her cheeks flushed with a heated blush of pleasure and frustration with the blouse's buttons.

I giggle, slightly, and lean back enjoying this. I like watching her become flustered, normally the 'Great Alex Russo' is always in control, completely cool and collected. But I have the distinct honor of seeing her this way, almost child-like and so very innocent in touch and words.

My white blouse hangs open and she stares. My whole body envelopes into a blush, I now find myself becoming very shy over showing her. She pulls down my bra straps and kisses the red marks that the bra left behind.

She stops, "Harper?"

"Alex…"

She begins to shift in my arms and her brow becomes wrinkled, "I think I really like you."

I giggle, I can't help it, "Well good, I like you too."

"Good," She sighs, relaxing and I can't really say why she thought I never did like her, maybe love her. She now smiles at me, that smile where I can't help and smile back, and then she kisses me again and I taste watermelon.


End file.
